VLC Player for Mac OS X may be dead
Update: VLC has posted this clarifying the state of the VLC for Mac project, stating ‘VLC for Mac death is “greatly exagerated”‘, and emphasizing that the majority of development issues are in regards to the GUI, apparently it’s not as perilous as the web has assumed.
VLC Player for Mac OS X may well be nearing the end of it’s life, unless some Mac developers can step in to take over support of the codebase. In a sobering reality check, VLC developer Rémi Denis-Courmont says the following:
“There are now effectively zero active developers for MacOS.
As an immediate consequence, the 64-bits releases for MacOS has already been put on hold.
I don’t need to mention the stale status of the MacOS user interface.
If it goes on like this, MacOS support may be discontinued as of VLC 1.1.0. There is nobody to make the necessary updates to the MacOS support code, for instance to support the new VLC video output architecture.
Taking into account the learning curve to VLC development, I think it is fair to say that the situation is now critical.”
VLC is my favorite video player by far, it’s cross platform compatible and works flawlessly with nearly every video type thrown at it. I really hope some capable developers step in to take over the Mac OS X division, it would be very sad indeed if Mac users lost out on any further VLC releases.
I’m glad to hear the update. VLC rocks. The only awkward portion of the software is actually the GUI, so maybe by getting some new devs, this will improve. I know its not up to them, but Quicktime integration would be the best thing ever.